Sunday 5 After Pentecost 2019

Sermon given at All Saints, in St Andrews,  July 14, 2019

“But the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.”  Deuteronomy 30:14.

All of us have biblical verses which strike a cord within us and remind us of certain people or moments or events. As I digested the readings this week preparing to preach, this verse from Deuteronomy reminded me of how much over the years I have come to appreciate a humble and unassuming giant of the spiritual life, Br Lawrence of the Resurrection.

Br Lawrence was a seventeenth century Carmelite lay brother in Paris. After years as a soldier, he entered the monastery and spent most of his life doing kitchen chores and repairing sandals for his fellow religious, and gradually became known as a spiritual guide. His letters and sayings were published after his death, and quickly, under the title Practice of the Presence of God, became an instant classic, translated into many languages, including English. There is much wisdom in his simplicity and approach, all focused on calmly throughout the day, in whatever work or occupation one finds oneself, habitually calling gently to mind the presence of God, whom, he came to realize, is never far away, indeed is always at hand and within reach. As Lawrence puts it,

“He does not ask much of us, merely a thought of Him from time to time, a little act of adoration, sometimes to ask for His grace, sometimes to offer Him your sufferings, at other times to thank Him for the graces, past and present, He has bestowed on you, in the midst of your troubles to take solace in Him as often as you can. Lift up your heart to Him during your meals and in company; the least little remembrance will always be the most pleasing to Him. One need not cry out very loudly; He is nearer to us than we think.”

The seventeenth century was a great time of spiritual writers, and many of them devised rather complex forms of meditation. Lawrence tells us that after reading many books about these methods and many headaches in trying to follow them, he came up with a much simpler approach. Lawrence had been a soldier before becoming a Carmelite friar, and that is reflected in the following description of his method:

“A little lifting up of the heart suffices; a little remembrance of God, an interior act of adoration, even though made on the march and with sword in hand, are prayers which, short though they may be, are nevertheless very pleasing to God, and far from making a soldier lose his courage on the most dangerous occasions, bolster it. Let him then think of God as much as possible so that he will gradually become accustomed to this little but holy exercise; no one will notice it and nothing is easier than to repeat often during the day these little acts of interior adoration.”

It is not surprising that this little book about the little way of being Christian has become a classic in the ecumenical sense, and has helped countless Christians of all stripes in their spiritual journey. His deep sense of finding God and abiding in His Presence among the pots and pans, the sewing of sandals, and in every task and every human encounter, can resonate with everyone. This approach, what we might call the Little Way, of joining love and awareness of God with love of neighbor in the small everyday tasks, the stuff of daily existence, is at the heart of Christian life, and is central to the Gospel reading of the Good Samaritan today.

The life of Mother Teresa of Calcutta witnessed an overwhelming response of the Church and much of the world to her simple but profound way of love: doing the humblest things for the humblest people, driven by her desire to love the children of a God who loved us first. Her constant acts of kindness and inclusivity in her idea of neighbor, each perhaps little in itself, amounted to great things that made the world take notice. Likewise, but in a different context, with St. Therese of Lisieux (1873-97), “the Little Flower”. At the heart of her spirituality was the Little Way, of offering not only great suffering up to God, but also the everyday and seemingly trivial difficulties which arise in our daily lives and relationships with others. Such an attitude goes to the very heart of Christ’s relationships with almost everyone he encounters in the Gospels. Likewise, the parables are full of ordinary people, events and things, and opportunities to show love of God and neighbor.

Just a few days ago the Church celebrated the life of one of the most important figures in the whole spiritual tradition, the sixth century monastic teacher St Benedict about whom Gregory the Great wrote a life. As in all medieval hagiographical literature, miracles performed by God through the intercession of the saint form an important part of the story. In Gregory’s Life of St. Benedict, the very first miracle Benedict performs, while still a young man, is to quietly repair a tray which his nurse accidentally broke. As Pope Gregory describes the action:

The poor woman burst into tears; she had just borrowed this tray and now it was ruined. Benedict, who had always been a devout and thoughtful boy, felt sorry for his nurse when he saw her weeping. Quietly picking up both the pieces, he knelt down by himself and prayed earnestly to God, even to the point of tears. No sooner had he finished his prayer than he noticed that the two pieces were joined together again, without even a mark to show where the tray had been broken. Hurrying back at once, he cheerfully reassured his nurse and handed her the tray in perfect condition.¹

Benedict would go on to prophesy before kings, found abbeys, heal the sick and even raise the dead, but I am not sure if any of those great works of the Spirit are more beautiful than this prayerful and heartfelt desire to reach out and help a fellow human being in emotional distress. His life and his Holy Rule are full of concern for the little things, such as caring for the sick and extending hospitality to all. Many examples could be given, but his description of the duties of the Cellarer in the monastery is typical, describing him in many of the ways that would fit well the Good Samaritan:

He must show every care and concern for the sick, children, guests and the poor, knowing for certain that he will be held accountable for all of them on the day of judgment. He will regard all utensils and goods of the monastery as sacred vessels of the altar, aware that nothing is to be neglected. He should not be prone to greed, nor be wasteful and extravagant with the goods of the monastery, but should do everything with moderation and according to the abbot’s orders. Above all, let him be humble. If goods are not available to meet a request, he will offer a kind word in reply, for it is written: ‘A kind word is better than the best gift ‘ (Sirach 18:17).

The Rule also says that all guests must be received as if one is receiving Christ, and hospitality is a central part of the Little Way just as it is in monastic life.

Likewise this week our Scottish church remembered another lesser known monk St Drostan, who is particularly venerated in Aberdeenshire. We know little about him, except that most likely he was a disciple and fellow missionary of the great St Columba, and that holy well dedicated to him serves as the water source for Aberlour distillery. But what we really know is that he prayed, recited the Psalms and drew sustenance from the liturgy, and preached and trained others to do so. He baptized and lived in community, being solicitous for the poor, and one miracle for which he is remembered is the simple but kind act of restoring the sight of a priest who had gone blind.

 

What gave these figures the strength to do these things, to persevere in their spiritual paths? There is a threefold way that prepares us for this, that characterizes this monastic spirituality.  One cultivates an attentiveness to God and the needs of our neighbor by first of all living a life based upon praying together in common, through the liturgy, offering our prayers to God as a community as we do this morning, and do week after week, year after year. Secondly, by the prayerful reading of scripture, known as lectio divina, or sacred reading, we ponder over and over the meaning of God’s Word for us. And, thirdly, we do not just think about God and offer up pious thoughts, but we put our faith into action, as the Benedictine motto puts it, ora et labora, prayer and work. Like the cellarer mentioned in the Rule, our work, whatever it is, should be permeated by kindness, outreach to others, an offering lifted up to God, to use another Benedictine motto that is in itself a prayer, “that in all things Christ may be glorified.”

This not just something for monks, and indeed it has long been noted that our Anglican way of worship, though the Book of Common Prayer lived out in parish communities, has deep roots in this Benedictine and wider tradition.

The Anglican monk and spiritual theologian, Bede Thomas Mudge, notes that The Benedictine spirit is certainly at the root of the Anglican way of prayer,  in a very special and pronounced manner:

The example and influence of the Benedictine monastery, with its rhythm of divine office and Eucharist, the tradition of learning and ‘lectio divina’, and the family relationship among Abbot and community were determinative for much of Anglican life, and for the pattern of Anglican devotion. This devotional pattern persevered through the spiritual and theological upheavals of the Reformation. The Book of Common Prayer . . . the primary spiritual source-book for Anglicans . . . continued the basic monastic pattern of the Eucharist and the divine office as the principal public forms of worship, and Anglicanism has been unique in this respect.

 

While this spirituality and discipline, with deep roots in monastic and Anglican tradition, can hopefully prepare us to be attentive to God and neighbor, we must avoid complacency.  As the parable of the Good Samaritan shows, merely being an expert on the letter of the Law was not enough to truly discern who your neighbor is, nor does the painstaking performance of ritual automatically prepare us to understand what God wants from us in our everyday encounters with those around us.

The Lawyer answered Jesus correctly on love of God and neighbor as being the heart of the Law, and Jesus tells him to do this, and he shall live. And when in response to the further question of the lawyer, about who is his neighbor, Jesus relates this parable we heard today, and when the lawyer replied that he was a true neighbor to the wounded man who had showed mercy to him, the Lord responds again with a command, “Go, and do in like manner.” That is to say, remember that it is with such prompt mercy you must love and sustain your neighbor who is in need. And by this Christ most clearly revealed to us, that it is love alone, and not love made known by word only, but that which is proved and manifested also by deeds, which brings us to eternal life.

St Benedict and St Drostan and a host of others teach us in their words and deeds that in the guest we receive, in the ones we comfort and support in whatever type of need they are in, that we also do this for Christ. In such acts we perfectly manifest, and make real, love of God and neighbor. We should not excuse ourselves, saying that these matters are too great for us. The Scriptures and the whole tradition of the Little Way, which is in fact a sacred and golden way, tells us that if we cannot do greater things, then let us all help in the lesser things. Help others to live, whether physically or emotionally or spiritually in need. Give food, clothing, medicines, apply remedies to the afflicted, bind up their wounds no matter what type they are, ask about their misfortunes, speak with them of patience and forebearance, draw close to them. It is hard, but we must have confidence that God will supply us with the strength to see Christ in our neighbor. We must let compassion overcome our timidity. We must let the love of our fellow human beings in need overcome the promptings of fear that hold us back. We must not despise our brothers and sisters in need, we must not pass them by.

If I might end with the words of the great patristic writer Gregory of Nazianzus, commenting upon this very Gospel and its implications for all of us, for God, in our hearts and in our neighbor, is indeed closer to us than we might think:

“O servants of Christ, who are my brethren and my fellow heirs, let us, while there is yet time, visit Christ in his sickness, let us care for Christ in His sickness, let us give to Christ to eat, let us clothe Christ in his nakedness. Let us do honour to Christ, and not only at table, as some did, not only with precious ointments, as Mary did, not only in his tomb, as Joseph of Arimathea did, not only doing him honour with gold, frankincense and myrrh, as the Magi did. But let us honour Him because the Lord of all desires from us mercy and not sacrifice, and goodness of heart above thousands of fat lambs. Let us give him this honour in his poor, in those who lie on the ground here before us this very day, (stricken by wounds both seen and unseen), so that when we leave this world they may receive us into eternal tabernacles, in Jesus Christ our Lord, to Whom be there Glory for all ages, Amen.”

Rembrandt. The Good Samaritan.

 

 

 

The Otters’ Song

According to Tradition, the sixth century Irish monk St Brendan was known for going on long voyages on the Western Ocean, where he and his monks in their little coracle encountered new lands and many wonders, all the while faithfully praying the Psalms and Liturgy.

The Otters’ Song

 

Where shore meets wave,

where fish and kelp

bait hungry men,

there the Otters play,

our ancient souls

reveal the ocean’s secrets.

 

“St. Brendan sailed the deep green sea,

They say none sailed so far as he.

Somehow he kept his brothers sane,

Through storms of wind and sleet and rain.”

 

“St. Brendan fasted, worked and prayed,

He sang the blesséd Psalms so well.

He rode the waves on monstrous beasts,

defied the very gates of hell.”

 

“We know his sanctity was real,

His heart a stranger to all guile.

For when he watched the Otters dance,

The Holy Spirit made him smile.”

 

We are the Otters.

Much has changed,

but we remember.

 

 

The Visitor

St. Colmcille, also known by his Latin name Columba, was a great monastic leader in sixth century Ireland. He left his country for permanent exile and founded a new community on the island of Iona off the western coast of Scotland. Iona became one of the greatest centers for the spread of Christian culture throughout Britain.

The Visitor

Three days ago,

just as he said.

After nones,

the hour of our redemption,

I climbed a hill

to look out

into the West

beyond the waves.

The sun, no longer

quite so high,

verging towards its

stark descent below

the limitless Ocean,

lit up the clouds

with streaks of

reddish orange.

At first my eyes saw

nothing strange or

unexpected, but then a

black spot grew larger

as it made its way toward

Iona,

our holy haven

in the sea.

Without a sound,

the giant heron

glided towards the grass

beside me, so wasted

and tired from its flight

its great neck no longer

could support its lolling head.

As heavy as a small child,

the docile creature

without a sound let me

pick it up and bring it

to the nearby barn.

Nestled in the clean straw

it ate and slept in safety.

 

Brimming over with reverent wonder,

after Vespers I approached

Columba, told him of the

bird’s arrival, how it happened

just as he’d predicted.

 

He thanked me for my charity and obedience,

twin pillars of our island life;

with gentle confidence assured

the bird would soon recover,

a creature dear to him he said,

for like Columba long ago

it came across the waves from

Ireland,

but unlike him would soon return.

In that moment I gripped his arm and felt

the weight of our exile, all we had abandoned,

he and I and all our brethren,

to come and live upon this Rock,

our desert in the sea.

Stumbling words cannot express

this instant union of

piercing joy and heartfelt sorrow,

grey eyes and rugged hands

reached out to me in gentle reassurance.

I do not know if Columba

went to see our feathered guest.

On the third day it rose from its bed,

and strutting like a king

it raised a mighty head

to gaze upon the sun,

gave forth a harsh primeval cry.

Without a glance to even bid farewell,

the rested bird rose up into the currents of the air,

and set its gaze for home.

The Prayer of St Fillan

 

 St Fillan was an eighth century Irish monk and missionary to Scotland, who is associated by local tradition with living the life of a hermit in Pittenweem in the East Neuk. The cave believed to have been his hermitage is still there and once again is a place of worship and pilgrimage, containing also a holy spring of water. Besides being a preacher and evangelist, whose bell and crozier still survive, Fillan is associated with the taming of wolves (perhaps a play on the meaning of his name in Irish), and with the fact that as he sat and prayed in the darkness of the cave, his left arm was miraculously illuminated, enabling him to read the Scriptures.

 

St Fillan’s Prayer

The chanting of gulls,

Songs of shifting sands,

Souls at home where shores

Can but embrace the restless, heaving sea.

Distant echoes of Ireland,

Kinfolk far away,

Memories flow in and out

Like lapping waves.

 

Tired again, so very tired,

from taming wolves,

Teaching the discipline of freedom,

Paths of forgiveness, peace and mercy.

Uncertain, at times, if they or I, Fillan,

Grasp at all what You have done for us.

 

Sanctuary.

 

Nestled in this sacred womb,

Attentive, conscious, quiet,

I sense once more the lure of fresh beginning,

Springs of clear, pure water,

Nourish Hope of second and eternal birth.

Sitting still in damp darkness,

Gently seeking, dreaming of my very heart’s desire.

 

And somehow, in your own time, You touch me.

 

My left arm,

so recently bereft of strength,

Worn out by bearing weighty bells and crosses,

Illuminates the threatening gloom.

Emboldened eyes freshly ponder

Psalms long ago learnt by heart,

Depths deeper than this or any other cave,

Respond once more to longed-for, promised Light.

 

But oh now,

joyful, dancing, fruitful self-abandon,

Heart leaping like a Roe Deer on the fresh green hills at Dawn!

 

When I am weak, then am I strong.

 

 

Transfiguration 2017

Sermon on Transfiguration, given at All Saints Church St Andrews, 6 August 2017

“This is my beloved Son, hear him.”

 

Sometimes in reading Scripture, some of the most important conversations happen off stage, so to speak, and I for one wonder what they are saying. You may have your own examples of this, and for me, two stand out. For instance, how about the Disciples speaking with Jesus on the Road to Emmaus after the Resurrection? What exactly did Jesus say, and how did he say it, to make their hearts burn like fire within their breasts? In today’s great mystery, what were Moses and Elijah saying when they stood there in the presence of the Transfigured Christ? Like the 3 apostles present, were they wondering who this Jesus was, who was so clearly resplendent in Glory?

For he was beautiful, and glorious, and awful to behold, shining with the light of divinity, and, significantly, was this way even before he had died and risen from the dead. And Elijah and Moses, the text tells us, also were beautiful in his reflected splendour. We must not be afraid of beauty; we must never feel guilty about gazing upon and resting in admirable awe in the presence of beauty in God’s good creation. For Jesus was transfigured, revealed to us as he truly was at all times, even before his resurrection, for those capable of seeing, whom he briefly allows to see Him thus, and also showing us a glimpse of our own destiny:

As Saint Thomas Aquinas put it,

“At his Transfiguration Christ showed his disciples the splendor of his beauty, to which he will shape and color those who are his: ‘He will reform our lowness configured to the body of his glory.'” 
Now there are many possible things this mystery teaches us.

First and foremost that Jesus Christ is both God and man, and is the beloved of the Father. Secondly, that there is a deep harmony which exists between the Old and the New Testaments regarding Christ, made clear to us by the visible presence of Moses and Elijah.

But in this emphasis on glory and fulfillment of ancient promise, there is even a deeper mystery. Even before the Transfiguration became a feast day in the western church, this Gospel was read on the first Sunday of Lent. It follows in the narrative when Christ has set his face towards Jerusalem, and all that would entail, both for him but also for the disciples, including and perhaps especially Peter who had just ecstatically confessed his belief in Him, and who had also wanted to dissuade Jesus from going to Jerusalem. We must remember this event is a stage to the Cross, as the ancient liturgical cycle and the words themselves teach us; and the Cross, just as it must not be separated from the resurrection which will follow it, must also not be separated from the Transfiguration which preceded it.

As the text indicates, Moses and Elijah were also in splendor as they discussed this very thing, this approaching Passion, with Jesus. And it would be nice to stay on that mountain, basking in the glory of the Lord, nice for Peter, and nice for us, but as real as this light and glory of Mt Tabor was and is, it is not separated, for either Jesus or for us, by the reality of Calvary. As Archbishop Michael Ramsey put it, in the midst of a world too easily dominated by the shadow of Calvary, we must ever look for signs of God’s ability and power to transform even the ugliest of the realities of sin and despair into moments for a more powerful light to break though and transform all around us, right here and now:

“Confronted with a universe more terrible than ever in the blindness and the destructiveness of its potentialities, men and women must be led to Christian faith, not as a panacea of progress or as an otherworldly solution unrelated to history, but as a gospel of Transfiguration. Such a gospel transcends the world and yet speaks directly to the immediate here-and-now. He who is transfigured is the Son of Man; and as he discloses on the holy mountain another world, he reveals that no part of created things, and no moment of created time lies outside the power of the Spirit, who is Lord, to change it from glory to glory. “

 

As Archbishop Ramsey continues to tell us in his famous book on the Transfiguration, the Eastern Church has always been much more comfortable with this language, of keeping Transfiguration always before us, the transforming presence of the light of Mt Tabor, present already in our lives here and now, perceptible for those with eyes to see, than in the West.

But if we look to the earliest days of Christianity in Scotland, the life of St Columba, we find this language wonderfully present in several stories about Columba handed down by his disciples. One story tells us that while Columba presided at the Eucharist, a visiting saint noticed a shining ball of light around Columba’s head, and a column of light surrounding him until the Eucharist ended. Another story relates directly to the Transfiguration, as it focuses on opening up the meaning of Scripture. A fellow monk, who admitted he was terrified afterwards until Columba consoled him, witnessed the following:

“On another occasion when St Columba was living in Hinba, the grace of the Holy Spirit was poured upon him in incomparable abundance and miraculously remained over him for three days. During that time he remained day and night locked in his house, which was filled with heavenly light. No one was allowed to go near him, and he neither ate nor drank. But from the house rays of brilliant light could be seen at night, escaping through the chinks of the doors and through the keyholes. He was also heard singing spiritual chants of a kind never heard before. And, as he afterwards admitted to a few people, he was able to see openly revealed many secrets that had been hidden since the world began, while all that was most dark and difficult in the sacred scriptures lay open, plain, and clearer than light in the sight of his most pure heart.”

 

We may not be granted such moments very often, and, like St Columba’s disciple, perhaps we would not always know what to do with them if we were! But we do experience humbler visions all the time when we see people around us, through acts of love and charity and forgiveness manifest purity of heart, and truly are transfigured into angels of light. When one has the grace to sense a strong experience of God, it is as though seeing something similar to what the disciples experienced during the Transfiguration: For a moment they experienced ahead of time something that will constitute the happiness of paradise. In general, it is brief experiences that God grants on occasions, especially in anticipation of harsh trials. However, no one lives “on Tabor” while on earth, and we must acknowledge this. But as Pope Benedict XVI recently wrote in a talk given on this very feast, we do have a sure way to nourish the light within us, and this is by learning how to listen to the word of God:

“Human existence is a journey of faith and, as such, goes forward more in darkness than in full light, with moments of obscurity and even profound darkness. While we are here, our relationship with God develops more with listening than with seeing; and even contemplation takes place, so to speak, with closed eyes, thanks to the interior light lit in us by the word of God.”

When I think back to my first memories of this story, I remember that it made me want to know much more about who Moses and Elijah were, and how what they were saying and doing pointed to Jesus. This Transfiguration story points us to the Scriptures, encourages us to ponder them again, Old Testament along with the actual words of Jesus. I have come to feel that this feast among many other things that it represents, is also a celebration of the Word of God, and the act of pondering it, praying over it, and listening to what it tells us to do and how to be. As we are but a few days from Lammas, the celebration of the first loaf made from the harvest, I would like to share a lovely quotation from the fourth century theologian Ephraim the Syrian, which employs this harvest imagery, significantly as the opening of our oldest preserved full sermon on the Transfiguration:

“The harvest comes joyfully from the fields, and a yield that is rich and pleasant from the vine; and from the Scriptures teaching that is life giving and salutary. The fields have but one season of harvest; but from the Scripture there gushes forth a stream of saving doctrine. The field when reaped lies idle, and at rest, and the branches when the vine is stripped lie withered and dead. The Scriptures are garnered each day, yet the years of its interpreters never come to an end; and the clusters of its vines, which in it are close to those of hope, though also gathered each day, are likewise without end. Let us therefore come to this field, and take our delight of its life giving furrows; and let us reap there the wheat of life, that is the words of Our Lord Jesus Christ.”

 

 

If we desire enlightenment, ponder the scriptures; ponder the prophets, ponder the law, ponder the proverbs and psalms, all in light of the teaching of Jesus Christ; do all in our power to be open to this light and illumination, and listen in serious delight to Jesus over and over again; ponder who he is, the Transfigured One who yet humbled himself to die on a cross, and who then rose again, and let his words sink into the very depths of our being, allowing us to be transfigured in his image and likeness; as an old American hymn that I learned in my childhood put it, describing Jesus: “In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, with a glory in his bosom which transfigures you and me”. The Father’s testimony is meant to raise us up and strengthen our own infirmity of Spirit, and help us remember the implications of what it truly means to be brothers and sisters of Jesus, made in the image and likeness of God.

As Pope Leo the Great concludes his sermon on this great mystery, the oldest sermon on the Transfiguration we have in the Western church, he dwells upon the command of the Father, “Listen to Him”.

“Without delay therefore hear Him Whom in all things I am well pleased; in preaching Whom I am made known; in whose lowliness I am glorified; for He is the Truth and the Life, He is my power, My wisdom. “hear ye Him” whom the mysteries of the Law foretold; whom the mouths of the prophets proclaimed. “hear ye him” Whose Blood has redeemed the world; Who has chained the demon, and taken from him what he held; Who has blotted out the deeds of sin, the covenant of evildoing. “hear ye him” Who opens the way to heaven, and though the humiliation of the Cross prepared for you a way to ascend to his kingdom. “ Amen.